The Killing
by GriffinSky
Summary: After his last case blew up in his face, all Jim Kirk wanted was a break. But instead, he has a new, infuriatingly logical partner, a best friend who's barely speaking to him, and a high-profile murder case. Cop AU. Features all main characters.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This is a modern-day cop AU inspired by The Killing on AMC. It will include all the main characters from the movie and TOS. It's a crime thriller, so it'll have lots of shady characters, deep dark secrets, and you never know who the bad guy could be… This is my first Star Trek story, so please review!_

Chapter 1

_Monday, November 3__rd_

Jim Kirk was packing up to leave when his boss rolled in.

It was taking longer than he expected, because it was nearly impossible to find anything in his cluttered, tiny office. Empty Chinese take-out containers and dirty clothes were strewn carelessly about, covering the thick files stuffed with paperwork that littered his desk, chair, and filing cabinets—which was fine with Jim, because it wasn't like he was ever going to do it, anyway. That's what Janice Rand the secretary was for, right? That and eye candy. No, right now his main concern was finding his keys so he could get the hell out of the police station and back to his apartment for a shave, a smoke, and, hopefully, a good night's sleep. After, of course, his two hours of trying to get Bones to pick up the phone even when he saw Jim's name on the caller ID.

But Captain Chris Pike had to ruin this admittedly pathetic dream when he unlocked the door to Jim's office and rolled his wheelchair inside. Jim scowled deeply when he saw the smile the grizzled man was wearing. He doubted it could mean anything good.

"I've got a case for you, Jim," Pike stated cheerfully as he wheeled up to Jim's desk, bracing his hands against it to stop his forward momentum.

Jim didn't even glance at him as he continued digging through the layer of trash over his office for his car keys. "No," he said firmly through gritted teeth. "My shift's over."

Pike sighed, his smile fading a little. "C'mon, Jim. Since when have you been the kind of detective that stops when your shift is over?"

Jim's fists clenched as Pike hit a nerve. "I'm tired, Pike. Don't I deserve a break?"

The cheerfulness in Pike's bright blue eyes was almost completely dampened now, and Jim experienced an almost imperceptible twinge of guilt at that. "We all do, Jim," he sighed, running a hand over the shiny silver metal armrest of his new wheelchair. Okay, so now the guilt was definitely perceptible. Jim shoved it down, reminding himself that that _wasn't his fault_. Pike was silent for a few seconds before slapping on a bracing smile. "But crime doesn't stop, even if our will to deal with it sometimes falters." He fixed Jim with his patented piercing stare, simultaneously thoughtful and expectant and challenging, the same look he had on his face when he got Jim to follow in his father's footsteps and enter the Police Academy.

"Fine," Jim finally said grudgingly. It was hard _not _to rise to that look, as he was sure Pike knew. "I'll take the case. What is it?"

The smile on Pike's face became more genuine at Jim's acceptance. "I got a call from a couple of uniforms on patrol. Apparently they found something suspicious in Walden Park. Brent sounded like it was really urgent, wanted some detectives on the scene right away."

Jim groaned internally. _That_ didn't sound very interesting. "I'll go as soon as I can find my keys," he muttered, continuing what was rapidly seeming more and more like a pointless search.

"Don't worry about it," Pike replied smoothly. "Your new partner will drive you."

Jim froze, an unpleasant feeling rising in his stomach. "Partner?" he growled. "You didn't say anything about a new _partner_."

"Jim, you didn't think I was going to let you work a case without a partner. We both know you're smarter than that," Pike admonished condescendingly, in a way that inflamed the rebellious streak Jim's instructors at the Academy had never been able to beat out of him.

"I thought maybe you'd cut me a break after what happened with the last guy," Jim replied pointedly, hoping the memory would be enough to get Pike to let him work a few cases by himself.

Pike sighed again. "You don't have to worry, Jim. I picked this guy out myself. He's a decorated detective." He paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully before continuing slowly. "You've probably heard about him, actually."

Jim had a bad feeling about the way Pike was carefully choosing his words, and hadn't yet mentioned the name of his new handpicked detective. "Who is it?" he asked bluntly.

"Spock, from the Homicide Department in—"

Pike didn't even have time to get out the full sentence before Jim was up in arms.

"No!" the blonde yelled immediately, slamming his fist on his desk. "No fucking way!"

Pike's eyebrows flew up. "I take it you've heard of him," the police captain deadpanned.

"I'll put in a request for a transfer," Jim threatened. "I swear to God, I'll do it right now!"

"Go ahead. With your reputation, no precinct in North America will take you."

_Damn, that was true._ "Then I'll quit. Open up a P.I. business," Jim countered, running through his options in his head.

Pike smirked. "Be sure to list me as a reference to any potential clients." He rolled his eyes as Jim let out an angry scoff. "C'mon, Jim. What you've heard about Spock can't be _that_ bad. He's a good detective, gets results in almost all of his cases."

"Yeah, and also is supposed to be one of the most uptight, by-the-book, logical bastards behind a badge." Jim argued, the very thought repulsing him. "You can't expect me to work with someone like that."

"I think a person who won't let you get away with your usual bullshit will be a good change for you," Pike said, a hard tone edging into his voice. "You're partnering with him. End of discussion."

A few tense moments passed. Jim began to realize he didn't have a way out on this one. "This one case," he responded through gritted teeth. "And if I don't like him, you get me a new partner, okay?"

"We'll see," Pike said with a renewed smile as he rolled out of the room. "He's waiting in the parking lot for you. Good luck."

Jim grimaced, dropping his head into his hands. What the hell was Pike thinking, sticking him with a stiff like Spock? He'd heard horror stories from his Academy buddies about the man—he was dead weight in coming up with ideas about an investigation, as he refused to entertain any possibilities in a case that he didn't deem 'logical'. And if that wasn't bad enough, Spock also wouldn't so much as sneeze without first checking with his boss. Pike had to know that he would be crippled, trying to work with someone like Spock. Then why would the Captain do it? The only explanation Jim could come up with was that Pike was punishing him for what had happened. The thought sparked a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Eventually, Jim grabbed his gun and badge and dragged himself out to the parking lot to meet the infamous Spock. The man was tall, pale, blank-faced, and dressed in dark two-piece suit. It was hard to tell what race he was—maybe Asian, with one of the ugliest bowl haircuts Jim had ever seen. Running a hand through his own blond hair to make sure it was as messy as possible, Jim walked up to his new partner.

"Jim Kirk," he stated curtly, offering his hand to Spock, who grasped it firmly. _Maybe this guy isn't as bad as I've heard,_ Jim thought hopefully.

"I am Spock. I have been informed of the location of the disturbance." Without so much as another word, not even a first name, Spock turned on his heel and made for his car. _So much for that. _Jim trailed reluctantly after him, with the feeling it was going to be a very, very long case.

* * *

><p>The ride up to the Walden Park usually only took Jim ten or fifteen minutes, but with the stifling silence and Spock's insistence on driving exactly at speed limit when the road was completely deserted made it feel like hours.<p>

"Mr. Kirk, I have found that it is usually far safer to exit a car when it has come to a complete stop, not prior to this event." Spock commented as stepped out of his car and followed Jim out to the center of the fields. The grass was a hell of a lot higher than Jim remembered, and he batted agitatedly at the prickly, waist-high blades as he walked out to where one of the two uniforms, Brent, stood. The other one, Fields, was picking around the grass, probably searching for more evidence.

"What did you find?" Jim asked Brent, who was holding an evidence bag. He held it out in response. Jim grabbed it, ignoring Spock as the man walked to his side, hands clasped behind his back.

It was a sweatshirt, several sizes smaller than what Jim himself would have worn, in a male teenager's style. It was stained with something dark red—blood. Jim frowned slightly, annoyance prickling under his skin. "This is all you called me for?"

Brent's ears turned red as he shifted uncomfortably in place. "Well, uh, I thought that it could be evidence of a murder…or something…"

Jim rolled his eyes, shoving the bag back into the young man's arms. He hated dealing with unis right out of the Academy—they all wanted to be part of some high-profile murder case, and it was fucking _irritating _to the detectives. Jim wondered how the kid had gotten Fields, who was a seasoned cop nearing retirement age, to go along with him on this. "All this is evidence of is some kids messing around and one of them getting a scratch."

"I disagree, Mr. Kirk," Spock said, face remaining blank. Jim felt the beginning of a serious headache coming on. "It would be illogical for people to travel so far from town to engage in legal activities that could result in bloodshed."

"We're talking about teenagers, here, Spock. They're the very opposite of logical," Jim replied, trying to keep his voice neutral.

Spock coolly raised an eyebrow at him. "Even so, Mr. Kirk—"

Whatever the man was about to say was cut off by a shout from Fields. Jim glanced over at him as he raised a backpack out of the tall grass with a gloved hand. Jim beat his way over through the grass to inspect it.

The blue material of the backpack was splattered with blood as well. Jim felt uneasiness churn in his stomach. The amount of blood on the sweatshirt wasn't anything to worry about, and neither was the amount on the backpack, but together…

"Do you still believe that this is the result of children, as you say, 'messing around', Mr. Kirk?"

Jim glanced over his shoulder to see Spock leaning over him, coldly raising an eyebrow as their gazes met. Ignoring the barb, the blonde turned his attention back to the backpack. "We'll find out who this belongs to and check to make sure he's okay," he said calmly. Accepting the offer of a pair of rubber gloves from Fields, Jim unzipped the backpack and poked around the contents.

There were many loose sheets of paper, ruined by the rain of last night. A couple of spiral notebooks in similar shape. Obviously, this was the backpack of a schoolkid.

Eventually, Jim fished out a hardcover textbook that hadn't taken too much water damage. Reading the title, he whistled. "Damn, look at this." Jim turned it upward so that Spock and Fields could see it.

"Advanced Quantum Statistical Mechanics?" Fields read aloud. "Jesus Christ, my brain hurts just looking at that thing," he joked.

"The human brain has no nociceptors," Spock intoned. "So that statement is technically inaccurate."

Jim just shook his head as Fields shot him a 'what the fuck' face. "He wasn't being serious, Spock."

"I see," Spock responded, face still impassive. "Embellishment for no reason is a behavioral trait that eludes me."

"Is he your new partner?" Fields asked Jim in a whisper as Spock examined the textbook.

"Unfortunately," Jim muttered.

"What did you do, screw Pike's daughter or something?"

"This textbook covers material normally taught at the graduate level," Spock commented, cutting off Jim's reply.

"It's a high school kid's backpack, I'm positive." Jim grabbed the textbook back from Spock, flipping open the cover. A single name was scrawled there in black pen. Jim felt a little bit of relief when he saw the name—this kid wouldn't be too difficult to find. "How many Pavel Chekovs do you figure there are in Enterprise?"

"I will call Ms. Rand at the station and request that she search the city records," Spock replied, straightening up. "But I would estimate that there are very few."

"No shit," Jim muttered as Spock headed back over to his car and pulled out a cell phone. Fields shot him a sympathetic look as, with a deep breath, Jim walked over to his partner.

* * *

><p>"Take a left up here," Jim ordered Spock. He balled up the map and stuck it under the passenger seat in Spock's car. "This is it. The address is—"<p>

"435 Omicron Street," Spock finished calmly, taking the turn Jim had instructed and then pulling into the driveway of Pavel Chekov's house.

"Great." Jim stepped out of the car and slammed the door behind him, taking a moment to pause and size up the house.

It was fairly small and fairly beat up, with vines creeping up the brick walls and bare, curtain-less windows. But the door had been recently painted and the roof thatched by what seemed like an amateur, so obviously the occupants of the house were trying to make it look nice.

"This is the residence of Andrei Chekov, 48, an immigrant from Russia, and his son, Pavel Chekov, 16." Spock read aloud from his notebook. His eyebrow arched. Jim got the feeling that was something he was going to be seeing a lot of. "Fascinating. A sixteen-year-old studying Advanced Quantum Statistical Mechanics. He must have been highly intelligent."

Jim couldn't help but feel a little irked at Spock's use of past tense, because the kid wasn't necessarily _dead_, but he didn't say anything as he approached the front and pounded on it. "Mr. Chekov?" he shouted. "It's the police, Mr. Chekov, open up!" He paused and waited, but no one responded. He turned back to Spock. "There's a car in the garage, do you think he's ducking us?" Jim asked.

Spock blinked. "Excuse me?"

Jim scowled. "Lot of help you are," he grumbled under his breath. "C'mon," he said louder to Spock. "Let's go around back." Spock nodded and, hands tightly clasped behind his back in that annoying habit of his, followed Jim as he crept around the side of the house.

"Hello? Eez somevun zere?"

Jim whipped around at the sound of the heavily accented voice. He couldn't help but take a step back as he was faced with a truly bear-like man; Andrei Chekov was enormous, at least a head taller than Jim and a fair bit wider, with hands that looked like they could smash glass bottles by just squeezing into a fist around them. The fact that those hands were clutching a tire iron didn't ease Jim's mind, either.

Spock, on the other hand, didn't seem at all perturbed by Chekov's size or sudden appearance. "Are you Andrei Chekov?"

"Da," the man responded, eyes darting uneasily between Spock and Jim. "Vhy are joo here?"

Jim took a deep breath before asking, "Mr. Chekov, do you know where your son is?"

The tire iron slipped from Chekov's hands and clattered loudly on the pavement. "Vhy do joo ask? Eez he een trouble?"

Spock opened his mouth and Jim realized that the idiot was going to tell Chekov the truth. That was another thing that Jim had heard about the man—he was never able to lie, even for the good of the investigation. So Jim swiftly cut him off. "We wanted to ask him a few questions about an incident at the school," he lied smoothly. "When did you last see Pavel?" Jim ignored the eyebrow Spock was raising in his direction.

Chekov frowned slightly, beginning to look worried. "I have not seen heem since Friday. I vas avay all veekend dealing vith vork. I just came back few meenutes ago, and he vas not home. He should be home from school…"

"All right," Jim replied cheerfully, trying to cover up his own uneasiness. He pulled a business card from his pocket and put it into Chekov's massive hand. "Call me if you hear from him, okay?"

"Okay…" Chekov trailed off. He seemed disturbed by what Jim had said, and his eyes never left Jim and Spock as they turned and walked back to their car.

Jim plopped himself down on the passenger seat and pulled the car door shut, thinking. _So, the kid's dad is away for the weekend and he goes out partying with his friends. They bring some beers up to Walden Park…maybe they get drunk and start fighting…but why would he bring his backpack? _Jim sighed, running a hand through his hair. Spock sat in the driver's seat next to him.

"Spock," Jim started. "Get Rand to call all the local hospitals and give them Pavel's description. Have them call us if he tu—"

"I have already done so," Spock cut him off calmly.

Jim blinked in surprise. "When did you have time to do that?"

Spock arched his eyebrow. "When you insisted on stopping to get a 'hot dog'." The detective's lips curled downward in distaste. "I do not understand the popular tendency to consume flesh," he continued. "Especially when investigating a potentially time sensitive issue—"

"You know, Spock," Jim interrupted, leaning back in his seat. "I was almost impressed with you there. Almost." His partner blinked, perplexed, and Jim sighed. _This is going to be a long, long case. _"I want to go back to Walden Park. I think we should take a better look around. Maybe we'll find something that the unis overlooked."

Jim looked expectantly at Spock, waiting for him to start up the car and drive, but the man just stared out the windshield, looking thoughtful. "You lied to Mr. Chekov," Spock said, sounding genuinely curious. "May I inquire as to why?"

Jim rolled his cobalt blue eyes. Jesus, did he really have to explain this? "Look, Spock, you don't just walk up to a man and tell him that you found his son's bloody backpack."

"Why not? It is the truth."

"Spock, there are some times in an investigation where it is more prudent to not tell the whole truth, okay?"

Spock nodded thoughtfully. "I will accept this premise. But how was the instance with Pavel Chekov's father an example of this?"

Jim kneaded his temples in frustration. "Well…what if Chekov had killed Pavel? Then we'd be tipping our hand and showing that we had found his backpack, but not his body. Chekov would have a chance to, I don't know, destroy the body or something." Jim knew it was a stupid explanation, but his head was pounding far too hard for him to come up with something cleverer.

Spock frowned. "But—"

"Can you just drive us back to Walden, already?" Jim said testily, crossing his arms over his chest. _He can't possibly be as bad as your last partner, _Jim kept telling himself. _And it's just for one case. That's it. _

"Very well."


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: The Russian phonetics are from Google translate. They mean: "My son, where are you?" And also, for those of you wondering how Spock can be human and still _Spock, _his past and possible influences on his personality will be uncovered. _

Chapter 2

_Monday, November 3__rd_

Andrei Chekov swore under his breath in Russian as the two detectives pulled out of his driveway. Kicking away the tire iron lying at his feet, he hurried up the steps and back into his house. The kitchen was exactly as he had left it, with not a single dish or piece of cutlery out of place. Some of his son's books were stacked haphazardly on the table. As Andrei walked by, one of them slipped off the top of the stack and clattered to the floor. He leaned down and picked it up, reading the title. Advanced Astronomy. Andrei put the book back where it belonged.

"Pavel," he murmured. "Moĭ syn, gde ty?"

Pavel should have been home—it was one of their conditions. If he was going to let Pavel stay alone at home for a whole weekend, he would be home when Andrei got back, he wouldn't go out except for his school's Halloween dance on Friday, and he wouldn't be gone for the whole night. And besides, Pavel was smart, he was a good boy—he certainly wouldn't go out partying. He knew better. And if there were police detectives involved…worry twisted Andrei's gut and made him want to be sick.

He couldn't lose Pavel.

Andrei grabbed the house telephone and called Pavel's cell phone for the fifth time since he got home twenty minutes ago. Still no response. Finally, Andrei decided to switch to calling Pavel's friends. He dug frantically through the scraps of paper piled next to the phone, each with the number of a restaurant, teacher or another acquaintance on them, until he finally found the one he was looking for. Andrei punched in the numbers and pressed the phone to his ear, listening to the rings.

"Hello?" came a young man's voice from the other end of the line.

"Hikaru?" Andrei asked, wanting to make sure he'd found the correct phone number. Hikaru Sulu was Pavel's closest friend.

There was a short pause. "Mr. Chekov?" the teenager asked, surprised. "Is that you?"

"Da," Andrei answered shortly. "Have joo seen Pavel?"

Another pause from Hikaru, another shocked reply. "Last time I saw him was at the Halloween dance. Why, is he not at home?" Andrei could hear the worry in his son's friend's voice.

"Nyet. And he eezn't anzering his phone."

"Oh, shit," Hikaru said, sounding genuinely disturbed. "He wasn't at school today, either. I thought he was sick. I'll…I'll ask around if anyone's seen him. Uh…call me if he comes home, okay?"

"Da."

Then Hikaru hung up, and the line went dead. Andrei put the phone down, rubbed tiredly at his eyes, and wondered where his son was.

* * *

><p>"I do not know what you are looking for, Mr. Kirk."<p>

Jim glanced up at Spock from his position crouching in the mud and grass. He met his partner's impassive gaze for a few seconds before looking back down. "Neither do I," he replied. He rose to his feet and began to slowly walk between the two markers stuck in the ground. One, designating the position where the sweatshirt was found. The other, several feet away, where Fields had picked the backpack up. Jim hadn't found any other pieces of evidence, even though he'd circled the entire grassy field dozens of times. Truthfully, he didn't even know what he was expecting to find that the K-9 units and the unis' grid search had missed.

"Then might I suggest that you postpone this search until you do know? Or at least to a point when there is full daylight?"

Jim looked up at the darkening sky in mild shock. They'd already been out here for a while, and now the sun was beginning to set. He was loath to stop his search…there had been no word from all the local hospitals, and Jim had pretty much decided that this wasn't an innocent case of a scuffle between kids. It was a kidnapping or a murder, and either way, he needed to find Pavel as soon as possible. So, first things first—look in the most likely places for a body to be hidden.

But Spock, as hard as it was for him to admit it, was right. They weren't going to make any more progress today. "Yeah, alrigh—" Jim suddenly broke off, noticing something in the distance.

Three men were peering curiously over at the crime scene tape ringing the field Jim and Spock were standing in. All of them had fishing poles resting on their shoulders. Suddenly, the gears began turning in his head. "Spock?"

"Mr. Kirk."

"They found tire tracks nearby, didn't they?" Jim asked, although he already knew the answer.

"Indeed. The local police officers found only a short length of tracks, however, and were unable to determine where they originated or terminated. The rest were washed away by the rain." Jim could see curiosity bright in Spock's eyes—he was obviously wondering where Jim was going with this.

"And Walden Lake is right up that road we took." It wasn't exactly a question, and Spock didn't answer. He merely inclined his head, waiting. "Call the station," Jim ordered, voice low and grim. "We need to drag the lake."

* * *

><p>Hikaru did his best not to twist his hand nervously in his leather jacket as he walked down the dank street. He couldn't help the disgusted expression that came over his face as he caught sight of a couple of methhead bums lying in the filthy road. Hikaru forced himself to shove down the repulsed feelings creeping over his skin—he had to keep calm. He had to be the cool, easy-going guy, but that was fucking <em>hard <em>when your best friend was missing and it might be your fault.

"_Fuck_," Hikaru hissed under his breath as he rounded a corner and entered the skate park, the putrid stench of puke and human urine filled his nostrils. Why the hell Riley hung out in a place like this, with pathetic low lives like these, he would never know.

Hikaru heard the sound of blaring metal music and he lifted his gaze from the ground (he had been watching to make sure he didn't step on something gross). Riley was sitting on one of the stone slopes of the skate park, surrounded by his less than reputable friends who were banging their heads to the unappealing noise coming from their stereo.

"Kevin," Hikaru barked authoritatively, stopping and crossing his arms over his chest. He completely ignored Kevin's stoned friends and focused on the Irish teen.

Riley's eyes drifted toward Hikaru, and he grinned. "Hey, Karu…"

Hikaru's eyes flitted between Kevin's carefree expression and the smoking joint in his hand. "You're high," he said accusatorily.

"Yeah, you should try it." Kevin grinned even wider and offered the joint to Hikaru.

Anger exploded in Hikaru and he grabbed the joint from Kevin's hand. He threw it down and crushed it under his foot. Kevin's stoner friends let out loud "ooohs" and guffawed stupidly. Kevin's blissful face twisted in into one of intense irritation as he leapt to his feet. "What the hell, man?" he demanded.

Hikaru seized Kevin's arm and dragged him out of earshot of his idiotic stoner friends. "Pavel's dad just called me," he hissed to Kevin. "He not at home, and he's not answering his phone."

Kevin looked confused as he pried the Asian's fingers from his sleeve. "Who, Mr. Chekov?"

Goddamn, Hikaru had forgotten how fucking_ useless_ Riley was when he was high. Jesus _Christ._ "No, you idiot, Pavel! I haven't been able to find him!"

Kevin blinked at him for a minute, face blank, until it broke into a dumb grin. "Hey, maybe the kid finally got laid."

Hikaru shoved violently at Kevin's chest as fury spiked in him. The Irish teen smacked into the curved stone wall of the skate park. "What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?" he growled. "Pavel did not disappear for three days because he got _laid_."

Kevin just shrugged and pulled another joint from his pocket, beginning to hum his favorite song, 'I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen', and Hikaru just lost it. As the Irishman put the joint between his lips and what about to light it, Hikaru swooped in and grabbed it, throwing it to the ground. "We shouldn't have let him go do that! It was fucking stupid!"

"Well, that's on you, not me!" Kevin snapped back, eyes glued on his second destroyed joint.

"It's on both of us!" Hikaru hissed, even though the guilt churning his stomach told him Riley was right. Pavel was his best friend—_he_ should have been watching out for him…

Kevin opened his mouth to reply, but his eyes caught on something over Hikaru's shoulder and they widened in fear. "Oh, fuck, cops!" he shouted the warning and immediately he and every other kid in the skate park grabbed their drugs and fled. Hikaru turned around and saw a patrol car rolling up. He swore under his breath, pulled the hood on his jacket up to cover his head, and hurried away.

* * *

><p>It was pitch-black by the time the tow truck drove out to Walden Lake. The blue and red lights of a dozen patrol cars flashed in the darkness. Jim stood on the sandy shore as the towers worked, playing with the flashlight one of the unis had given him. Spock walked over to him, hands tightly locked behind his back.<p>

"Spock," Jim greeted quietly, glancing sideways at the man's impassive face. "You didn't have to stay for this."

"That is illogical," Spock replied smoothly, his gaze locked on the activity occurring around and in the lake. "I drove you here. Thus I must take you home."

Jim blinked. That almost might have been friendly or thoughtful, if he had phrased it in _any other way_. "I can find a ride, Spock. It's not a problem."

"I will take note of this information for future reference," Spock intoned. "But now that I am here, I am very interested to see what has been found in the lake."

"So am I." Jim's face was grim as he watched the divers hook up whatever they had found in the lake and the tow truck began to drive. There was a collective muttering of surprise and interest from the cops positioned on the shore as the back of a sleek black car breeched the dark surface of the water. Agonizingly slowly, the entire car was pulled from the water and onto the shore, covered in soggy green vegetation and dripping.

Jim grimaced as he walked toward it. He turned his flashlight on the car, scanning its interior. There was nothing of note in the front or back seats, just mud, kelp and water.

"Detective Kirk?"

Fields was standing behind the car, holding a crowbar poised over the trunk, watching Jim expectantly. Jim nodded, and Fields jammed the crowbar under the lid of the trunk and pried it open with a grunt.

The cop leapt back, but Jim stood his ground as water spilled out onto his shoes. Jim stared in the dark space as the black water leeched out and revealed what was underneath.

Unable to look away, he stared at the body inside the trunk and felt his stomach tighten and his throat close up.

He was small, shorter and thinner than Jim expected, but maybe that was because he was curled up to fit in the cramped space. He was barefoot and shirtless, the painfully pale skin of his chest darkened by purple bruises. Blue eyes were staring, wide and unseeing, at the interior of the trunk.

Jim felt rather than saw Spock step up to stand beside him. He couldn't bring himself to glance sideways and see that unmoved, impassive face. "I will request a DNA comparison," Spock said calmly. "But this corpse appears to be an adequate physical match to Pavel Chekov."

"Yeah," Jim replied quietly after a few seconds. "Yeah, he is." Jim crossed his arms protectively over his chest. "Now comes the worst part of the job." He turned around so he wouldn't have to stare at the tiny, pallid, half-naked body in the watery trunk of the car.

"What would that be?" Spock inquired, entirely unmoved by what was going on around him.

"We're going to have to tell Andrei Chekov that his only child is dead," Jim replied morbidly.

"Ah." Spock produced his own flashlight from his suit jacket pocket and began an examination of the exterior of the car. Jim fiddled with the cell phone in his pocket, wondering if it would be better to call the Russian now and tell him or wait until morning and instruct him to come to the station so they could talk in person. It didn't seem fair to the poor man to tell him over the phone, or to bring him to the building where everyone inside would undoubtedly be talking about his dead son.

"Fascinating."

It took Jim nearly a minute to shake off the cold feeling rising up in his chest and glance at Spock questioningly.

"This vehicle is the property of a local campaign."

_Local campaign? _Jim frowned in confusion at Spock, waiting for more information. Instead of speaking, Spock shined the unnatural yellow glow of his flashlight at the side of the car.

VOTE UHURA FOR MAYOR was painted across the side in big red, white and blue letters.

"Well," Jim said darkly, his hands clenching into fists at his side. "This just got a lot more interesting, didn't it?"

* * *

><p>Next Chapter: Bones comes into the picture.<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Yes, I know. I killed off Chekov. I'm sorry. I love him, but unfortunately, he's the only one who fits the profile for the victim in a crime thriller. You know: young, attractive, seemingly innocent…And also, for those of you who watched the Killing on AMC, while this story will be patterned after the show, there will be significant differences, increasing in magnitude as the story goes on. _

Chapter 3 3,844

_Tuesday, November 4__th_

Sometimes, Jim really fucking hated being a homicide detective.

Not a lot, but often enough that whenever the feeling came over him, it really was way too fucking familiar. Usually, it only happened when he was buried under a stack of paperwork, or when he had to wait _days_ for a search warrant because he had slept with the judge's daughter…or when he was sitting in a hospital waiting room, wondering if his boss would ever walk again (he wouldn't).

But right now, it was because he had to stand and watch as a father identified the dead, discolored, water-logged corpse of his son. His only child. Hell, his only relative this side of the Pacific fucking Ocean.

Jim stood in the morgue, trying not to shiver in the cold room. He tightened his dank, smelly jacket around himself (he hadn't showered, shaved, changed after they found Pavel's body, and only had slept a few hours) and watched as Dr. M'Benga, the coroner, pulled back the dark plastic sheet from the sixteen-year-old's body, revealing his face. M'Benga had dried him, and for some reason the sight of the boy's curly brown hair made Jim's stomach do a painful flip. But his emotion was nothing compared to that of Andrei Chekov.

The Russian's face contorted in an unspeakable agony, and tears formed in his dark brown eyes. "Da," he said, choking on the word. "That is my—" he broke off, covering his mouth. Tears slid down his cheeks, and Jim was positive he had never seen such a large, frightening man look so vulnerable. "That is my son." Chekov's knees seemed to give out, and he sat down heavily on the cold metal bench built into the morgue wall. He was sobbing into his hands. "Moĭ syn, moĭ syn…"

Jim's throat closed up at the sight of a parent mourning his child, and Bones' face suddenly flew into his mind. He shoved down that image, reminding himself that that _didn't happen._ M'Benga caught his eye and gave him a sympathetic look before he carefully covered the dead teen back up and left the room. Remembering what Pike had told him about dealing with grieving family members, he closed his eyes and counted slowly to twenty before he addressed Chekov.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Mr. Chekov," he said softly. "And I promise you, I will find who did this to your son." The man nodded shakily without removing his head from his hands. Jim waited another ten seconds before speaking again. "We don't like people who have just…lost someone to be alone. Is there a friend you can call to pick you up and stay with you?"

Chekov thought about it before he nodded again. "Da, da, I will call. I just need…" the man trailed off, unable to finish his sentence, but Jim understood perfectly.

"Take your time." Jim said gently.

Soon Spock entered the morgue without so much as a twitch despite the near fifteen degree temperature drop. They both stood and watched Mr. Chekov cry, and Jim thanked God that even Spock knew enough about despaired parents not to try to talk to the man just yet.

After several minutes where the only sound in the morgue was the Russian's pained sobs, his head finally rose and his red eyes met Jim's cobalt ones. "Ze…ze doktor told me zat my son drowned." Jim nodded. He'd gotten that same report from M'Benga. "Did…did he suffer? Did my son suffer?"

Jim's heart clenched and he found himself temporarily unable to answer. And then he saw Spock open his mouth and he realized what the stupid son of a bitch was about to tell Chekov. "No," Jim blurted out quickly, stopping anything Spock might have said. "We have reason to believe that he was unconscious when he went into the water. He didn't feel a thing."

Andrei Chekov looked just the slightest bit relieved as he dropped his head back into hands. "We'll leave you alone," Jim said quietly. "Just let anyone know when you're ready to use the phone." Waiting for Chekov to acknowledge him, Jim firmly grabbed Spock's forearm and dragged the clueless man out of the morgue and down the hallway. He only released him when they reached the main room of the station, where dozens of desks and filing cabinets were crammed into a too-small room and bored unis dying to get out into the field were milling back and forth. Jim ignored the eyebrow Spock had raised at him, performing his usual pre-case ritual of trying to distance himself from the tragedy. He took a deep breath, let it out gradually, and made a beeline for the coffee pot

Jim poured himself a steaming cup of black coffee and drained it in two long gulps. And then he refilled his cup, ready to down this one too, because it was his philosophy you couldn't get by on three hours of sleep without at least three cups of coffee to go with it. _God bless_ _Janice Rand. Her coffee almost makes up for the fact I can't legally sleep with her. _

"Mr. Kirk," Spock said, making Jim grimace into his coffee. "I am sure that you are insightful enough to realize that the damage to the victim's fingernails and hands implies that he was struggling to free himself from the trunk of the car he was trapped in until the time of his death. This combined with the bruises and other trauma to his body shows that Pavel Chekov did indeed suffer before his death." Jim cringed at the blunt way Spock detailed the poor kid's injuries. "Why did you indicate otherwise to Mr. Chekov?"

Jim sighed and lowered his cup. "Spock, do you remember yesterday when I told you that sometimes it is in the best interest of the investigation to lie?"

Spock nodded.

"Well, sometimes it's in the best interest of other people to lie to them, too." Spock arched an eyebrow skeptically. "Look, Spock, if we'd told that man that his son had died screaming and clawing to get out of a trunk then he'd drive himself insane, thinking about it. By telling a simple little lie, by letting the miserable bastard think that his kid died peacefully, we're making something that's fucking impossible just a little bit easier. Does that seem logical to you?"

The words came out much harsher than Jim intended, but he didn't really care. There was a minute of tense silence during which Spock looked thoughtful before the stoic man nodded. "Indeed. Very logical."

"Awesome," Jim ground out. He sighed, rubbing his forehead, and contemplated the untouched cup of coffee in his hand. He offered it to Spock. "Want something to drink? It's gonna be a long day."

"I do not consume caffeine, Mr. Kirk," Spock declined, wrinkling his nose at the beverage. _First hot dogs, now this. _

"What, you Mormon or something?"

Spock frowned. "My religious leanings have nothing to do with my distaste for artificial stimulants."

Jim shrugged. _So much for making a nice gesture. _"Suit yourself." He took a long swallow of the coffee. "As long as you can function without much sleep, because we've got a long day of investigating and shit in front of us."

Spock lifted his eyebrow delicately at the use of the phrase 'investigating and shit' but said nothing about it. "I have ordered a toxicology report, the results of which will not be available until late tonight. Once Mr. Chekov exits the morgue, Dr. M'Benga will conduct a more thorough examination of the body to provide us with more information." Spock rattled off. "What do you suggest we do in the mean time?"

Jim titled his head to the side, considering. They were going to divide and conquer, that much was certain. The only question was who would do what…_ Well, I doubt the bowl cut will endear any teenagers to Spock. _"I'm going to go to the school," Jim decided. "You know, talk to Pavel's friends and figure out who last saw him and what he was doing. You are going to go talk to our mayoral candidate, Nyota Uhura, and find out exactly how a dead teenager ended up in one of her campaign cars."

Spock nodded and began to turn around to leave, but Jim stopped him. "Hey, Spock, one more thing." The man stared expectantly at him. "You can tell Uhura and maybe a couple of her top officials about Pavel, but _that's it_. No one else is allowed to know that we've found his body. As far as the public knows, he's only missing, alright?"

Spock blinked, clasping his hands behind his back. "This is, as you put it, a necessary lie."

_Holy shit, he's actually getting it. _"Yeah," Jim responded, even though it wasn't really a question. "I've told everyone in the station to keep it under wraps. And Andrei Chekov, too, although I doubt he'd be shouting from the rooftops either way. The way I see it, the only advantage we have over the killer now is that he or she doesn't know that we know Pavel is dead. And his friends might be more forthcoming with information if they think there's still a chance of finding him."

"Your strategy is a logical one," Spock said approvingly (or, at least he was probably was feeling approving. Spock really only had one tone of voice). "But, do you mean to imply that Councilwoman Uhura and her campaign officers are not suspects?"

"Not at all." In fact, Jim would like nothing better than to take down a smug politician who thought they were above the law, even if she was really hot. He was already entertaining fantasies of a powerful, beautiful City Councilwoman having an affair with an underage student and then ordering his murder when he became a threat to her ambitions to become mayor of Enterprise. Aaaaand now he felt like a jackass for turning a kid's murder into a bad mystery novel. "But I know politicians, and I doubt Uhura would be willing to open up her campaign information to the cops unless she thought she could end up looking like the bad guy in a teen's murder investigation."

Spock nodded again. "Very well. I will go to Councilwoman Uhura's campaign headquarters and question her about her vehicle. Do you require me to drive you to the high school?"

Jim shook his head. "Nah, I found my keys." They had been in an empty body drawer in the morgue, oddly enough, and Janice claimed that was because a couple of days ago he'd gotten too drunk to drive so she'd hidden them. He pulled them from his pocket and shook them, producing a pleasant jingling sound. "We'll meet up here tonight for the tox screen results."

Spock briefly inclined his head toward Jim, which the blonde guessed meant 'goodbye', before striding out of the station into the parking lot. Jim gave him a three-minute head start, in which he polished off another cup of coffee and made sure that they wouldn't run into each other in the parking lot.

_Well, _Jim thought as he climbed into his car, _Spock's not a half-bad partner, when he's not around._

* * *

><p>Jim stared out at the thirty or forty kids crowded into the classroom, their expressions ranging from '<em>this is soooo boring<em>', to _'at least this is getting me out of trig_', to _'shit, I hope he doesn't find the weed in my locker_' and hoped for the sake of finding Pavel's murderer that every teenager wasn't as much as an annoying, uncooperative fuck as Jim had been at that age.

"_No one _remembers seeing Pavel leave the Halloween dance?" Principal Archer questioned sharply, his tone of voice indicating that he found this very hard to believe. They were greeted with the same grumbles and half-hearted headshakes that they gotten when Jim had asked the question the first time. Jim sighed.

"Just send them out and call the next group in," he said tiredly from his position sitting behind the teacher's desk in whatever classroom they were in, leaning back with his feet up. So far he'd seen no one who even seemed to know anything about Pavel or was acting oddly, except for maybe this one Irish kid, although he probably was just afraid that Jim smelled the stench of marijuana on his clothes.

"You heard him," Archer ordered sharply, and the kids rose in a communal scraping of chairs and bottlenecked at the door as they tried to escape. "I hope you find Pavel," Archer continued quietly, turning to face Jim. "He's a good kid, I'd hate it if something happened to him."

"Yeah," Jim replied, not letting the uncomfortable twinge in his stomach show on his face.

"He's one of the smartest kids I've ever met," Archer went on, taking off his glasses and squeezing the bridge of his nose. "We skipped him ahead two grades, you know—he's already a senior. And even now, most of the classes are too easy for him. He spends nearly all time in independent study because we can't keep up with him." Archer smiled worriedly.

Before Jim had a chance to respond, the next group of kids came in. He waited until they had all found a chair before he started. "Okay, by now you've all probably heard that Pavel Chekov is missing." Jim quickly scanned everyone's faces, gauging their reactions. Mostly boredom on the faces of the people who didn't know Pavel (which he had determined was the majority of the school, as the Russian kid was a serious nerd) or didn't really care about him, a few expressions of shock on those who weren't clued in to the school gossip, and…Jim grinned internally as he saw a worried, rather guilty expression on an Asian senior's face. _Score. _"Now, can anyone tell me if they saw Pavel over the weekend?" Jim asked the whole group, although his eyes were glued on the Asian kid. He looked even more worried, so, Jim reasoned, he hadn't. Neither had anyone else, judging by the silence with a few mumbled "No"s mixed in. "Okay, did anyone see him leave the Halloween dance?" The guilt on the kid's face doubled. _Excellent, _Jim thought, _we're finally getting somewhere. _

"Fine," growled Archer in frustration. "Everybody back to your classes, if you're going to be absolutely useless!"

The teens were more than happy to comply. Jim, however, leapt up and slammed his hand down on the Asian's desk. The kid looked up in shock. "Except you. You stay."

Jim saw him gulp uneasily, but he sat back down without argument. Jim plopped down at the nearest desk. "You can go," he addressed the principal, who was hovering awkwardly in the corner. Jim wanted to talk to this kid alone—he was more likely to hear the truth that way.

"Sorry," Archer replied apologetically. "School policy. A teacher has to be present during a formal interrogation of a student."

The kid's eyes widened. "Whoa, hang on a second. Formal interrogation? Do I need, like, a lawyer or something? Should I call my parents?"

Jim gritted his teeth. "It's not a formal interrogation," he said evenly. "We're just talking. And I'm guessing you're eighteen, right?"

"Yeah…" the teen replied tentatively.

"Then we don't need to call your parents, do we?" Jim flashed his best bright-white, charming, designed-to-put-people-at-ease smile. "What's your name?"

"Hikaru Sulu," the Asian said, shifting awkwardly in his chair.

"And you're a friend of Pavel's, aren't you, Hikaru?" Jim asked, making a mental note of the name.

"I'm his best friend," Hikaru said, almost a tiny bit defensively.

"Uh, huh," Jim replied. He decided to ease into asking him about the dance—he would get the kid more relaxed first. "Does Pavel have a girlfriend?" Jim questioned, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Uh…no, not right now." Hikaru responded, rubbing his face uneasily. "He, um, he isn't that popular."

"Not right now?" Jim repeated. "Did he use to?"

"Uh, yeah." Hikaru said, and when Jim gestured at him to continue he did so. "Well, last year he dated this freshman Irina, a Russian exchange student. They didn't really even like each other thatmuch, they both just missed Russia a lot and wanted to be around people who felt the same way. But, Christ, that chick was fucking_ crazy_. She ran off and joined some hippie cult halfway through the year without even saying goodbye." The teen shook his head at the memory.

"Anyone else more recent?" Jim prompted.

"Um…he took this girl Martha Landon to homecoming last month," Hikaru said, frowning. "But she was just wanted to piss off her boyfriend and figured that going with Pavel would annoy him the most. She didn't care about him at all."

"But you do," Jim said, seeing an opening. "I mean, you're his best friend."

"Well… yeah. I mean…" Hikaru broke off, swallowing awkwardly. "I'm one of his only friends, really. People give him a hard time, you know, because he's younger than everyone in his classes and he only came to America a few years ago and he doesn't really _get _how stuff works here." Hikaru suddenly cut himself off, realizing that he was babbling.

Jim heaved a carefully dramatic sigh and leaned forward into the teen's space. "Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of that. People give him a hard time, but he's a good kid. He deserves better, doesn't he?" Hikaru nodded. "And what he definitely deserves is his best friend telling the truth about how he went missing," Jim continued quietly. Hikaru looked surprised, and then dropped his gaze to the table in shame. "Look, Hikaru, I know you know something you're not telling me. And I promise, if you tell me right now you won't get into trouble." Jim paused strategically before letting his final questions rip. "When did Pavel leave the dance, Hikaru? Where did he go?"

Hikaru hesitated before opening his mouth, and for a second Jim was almost congratulating himself for getting the kid to talk. And then Hikaru balked. "Look, I…I'm sorry. I wish I could help. But I hooked up with this girl during the dance and I lost track of him. I don't know when he left, or where he went. I'm sorry."

Jim let out a long exhale of breath and tried not to let his disappointment show. He'd crack this kid eventually. "So, the girl you were with…was she hot?" he asked.

* * *

><p>Jim leaned against the side of the school, breathing in the cold fall air and resisting the urge to take the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and light up. He stared out over the soccer field, where the girls' team was practicing. Two blue-eyed, blonde players made eyes at him, simultaneously twisting their hair in their fingers flirtatiously. Jim smiled charmingly at back them (he wasn't a pervert; he just knew that he might have to get information from them some time during his investigation and didn't want to burn any bridges). Soon their coach called them over and the whole team jogged off the field.<p>

Sighing, Jim pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit the first number on speed dial. He closed his eyes, pushed the back of his head against the brick wall behind him and listened to the familiar ringing, not at all expecting anyone to pick it up.

So his heart nearly stopped, his eyes flew open, and he jumped away from the wall when there was a _click! _and a perpetually grumpy voice answered, "Yeah?"

"Bones?" Jim whispered, finding it hard to believe that after days and days and _days_ of silence and avoidance his best friend was finally taking his calls.

"Who were you expecting?" Bones rasped.

A million things that he could say flew through Jim's mind—smart-ass jokes, stories about the last girl he nailed, the location of that new World War II themed bar he had found…but only one thing came out.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out. And held his breath, waiting for Bones to answer.

A sigh rattled over the phone, and Jim imagined Bones resting his face in one hand, rubbing both his temples. "I know, Jim. Believe me, I know."

"It's just…you weren't answering my calls," Jim spewed, hating how childish and vulnerable he sounded. "So I went down to the hospital a few days ago, and then security threw me out."

"That's because you were shirtless, and very adamant about staying that way." Bones grumbled. "I work at a hospital, Jim, not a strip club."

Jim smiled sheepishly. "I was pretty drunk."

"I figured."

Neither of them said anything for a few moments while Jim worked up the courage to ask his next question. "So, have you, uh…have you talked to Jocelyn?" he asked, dreading the answer.

"Yeah," Bones responded, voice hard. "And she's talked to her lawyers. Now that they have proof that I facilitate a hostile environment, I doubt I'll ever see Joanna again."

Jim paled, and crushing guilt threatened to overwhelm him. "Oh God, Bones. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault, Jim." He could hear Bones' jaw clench with the words.

"Yeah, it is, Bones. It really is. I'm so fucking sorry."

"Yeah, well…" They fell into uncomfortable silence. "How's your boss?" Bones finally asked.

"He's still in the wheelchair," Jim answered lamely, unsure of what else to say.

"That's to be expected." More silence. "It's been a long time since I've had to dig a bullet out of someone's spine. Glad to know I've still got it."

"Me too."

Go awkward silence.

"Do you want to go out for a drink tonight, or something? I get off at six." Bones asked gruffly after a while. "I found this new bar. The bartender is dressed like a fucking Royal Air Force fighter pilot for some reason, but the booze is cheap, and the '40s nurse outfits the waitresses wear are skimpy as hell."

Jim grinned. And then he remembered. "Shit, Bones. I can't. I have a case. It's really important."

"What kinda case?" Bones inquired. The doctor had never cared about his work before, and Jim realized that his friend was just trying to prolong the conversation. And that was fucking awesome, because Jim had missed talking to him, too.

"Missing kid," Jim lied. _Actually, it's a_ dead_ kid. With curly hair that I'm just realizing reminded me of your daughter. _

"I guess that's more important than getting drunk in a place with pictures of Hitler on the dart boards." Jim laughed. There was a brief pause, and then Bones voice once again came through the line, sounding tight and urgent this time. "Sorry Jim, gotta go."

"Hey, can you hold on a sec?" Jim said quickly. "I might not have time to talk for a while."

"Sorry, Jim. Patients always chose the worst fucking times to go into cardiac arrest."

Before Jim could respond, Bones hung up, undoubtedly running off to save someone's life. Jim snapped his phone shut, tucked it back into his pocket next to the unopened pack of cigarettes, looked out over the soccer field, and smiled.

* * *

><p>Next Chapter: Spock meets the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and falls in love.<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Don't forget to review! _

Chapter 4

_Tuesday, November 4th_

When Spock pulled into the parking lot of the Uhura for Mayor Campaign Headquarters, the sky was clouded over. As he got out of the car and walked to the huge double doors, Spock reflected on the fact that many people he knew equated weather with moods—he suspected that such dark clouds would signal melancholy, or other negative emotions. Quite apt, for the day after an intelligent, promising young boy was found brutally killed.

Spock pushed through the double doors and entered a large, high-ceilinged room that was bustling with activity. Campaign volunteers were working at long table of fake wood, stuffing envelopes and making phone calls while large TVs blared the latest in polling numbers. Uhura, Spock noted with interest, was trailing behind her main competitor Khan Singh, the current mayor, by a slight amount.

But Spock wasn't interested in talking to the peons of the operations. Catching sight of an elevator, he strode toward it, as he knew from his research that Uhura's private office was on the top floor of the building.

"Excuse me!" Spock glanced up as a young man wearing an overly tight sweater vest rushed over and planted himself firmly in front of the elevator. "Where do you think you're going?" The young man (boy, really) crossed his arms over his chest, slipping his fingers between his torso and his biceps. Spock supposed the act was supposed to be intimidating.

"I am going to see Nyota Uhura," Spock replied simply, linking his hands behind his back. He started forward again, and yet again the young man attempted to stop him. _Fascinating_.

"You need an appointment to see her," the young man said aggressively.

"No, I do not," Spock said. He removed his badge from his belt and showed it to the man, who paled and scurried skittishly out of Spock's way. Spock couldn't help the tiny, illogical twinge of satisfaction that watching him do so prompted.

"Uh, go on ahead," the young man squeaked, tugging at the fabric of his sweater vest.

"Why, thank you."

Spock lifted his gaze above the man's head and he strode confidently toward the elevator. As soon as he pressed the 'up' button with one slim finger, the doors opened with a _ding! _and Spock stepped inside. He pushed the button for the top floor and stood immobile as the elevator rose upward, recalling everything he had read about Uhura in preparation for this meeting. She was a lawyer who had spent years prosecuting criminals before switching to politics. Using her past career as proof of her hard stance on crime, she easily won a seat on the City Council. But she had since set her sights higher, and was challenging long-time incumbent Khan Singh for the position of mayor.

The door slid open and he stepped out into the hallway. This level of the building, Spock noticed, was far nicer than the bottom one. The floor was covered with navy blue carpet and the walls of the offices were glass, allowing much natural light to illuminate every corner. Nothing was left in darkness, nor flooded with the fluorescent, yellowish light that Spock found offensive to the eyes. The offices themselves were tastefully decorated with wooden furniture and colorful potted flowers. But the aesthetic qualities of the décor were nothing compared to that of the woman occupying them.

Nyota Uhura was easily the most beautiful woman Spock had ever laid eyes on. She had flawless, smooth, dark skin and large, dark brown eyes that sparkled in the light. Her sleek black hair was pulled back into a professional yet graceful ponytail that fell between her perfectly shaped shoulder blades. She was dressed in an elegant black blouse and shirt that extenuated her every fine curve. Spock actually stopped in midstep to stare at her, marveling at the way her face and hands moved animatedly as she spoke.

Spock was snapped from his reverie by another woman stepping in front of Uhura. She was slightly shorter than the mayoral candidate, and had a head of untamed, bright red ringlets. Her features were less delicate than Uhura's and more heavily made-up; this was the famous Gaila Orion, the senior adviser, campaign manager, close friend and so-called 'gal Friday' of Nyota Uhura, and the woman believed to have been the driving force behind her election to the City Council.

Gaila's sharp blue eyes caught sight of Spock, and they narrowed suspiciously. She quickly tugged open the glass door to the office they were in and hurried out into the hallway at a speed that was truly a marvel of physicality and balance, given her three-inch heels. Standing right in front of Spock, Gaila crossed arms over her chest and all but glared at him. "_What_ are you doing here?" she demanded.

Spock raised his eyebrow at him. "I am here to see Ms. Uhura," he replied smoothly. He glanced over the fiery-haired woman's shoulder and saw the Councilwoman standing in her office, examining him curiously. Spock felt his skin burn hot as she looked at him.

_You must stop having these thoughts, _Spock commanded himself. _She is a suspect in your murder investigation. It is highly inappropriate. _

"No, you aren't," Gaila shot back at him. "Because to see her, you need an appointment, and if you had an appointment, I would know about it. But I don't, therefore you do not have one." Her eyes raked over his body from his feet to his head.

Before Spock could show his badge to her in response, Uhura exited the office and walked up to them. "Now, Gaila," she said judiciously, and Spock let her pure, melodic voice wash over him. "I'm sure this man must have a very good reason for being here if he's gotten so far." Uhura smiled at him, revealing straight, dazzling white teeth.

"Indeed, I do." Spock showed his badge to them. "I am Detective Spock from the Enterprise Police Department, and I am here to ask you some questions relating to a current investigation." Uhura's smile slipped and Gaila's stance changed from aggressive to defensive. Spock could see instantly that he had shaken both of them.

To Uhura's credit, she recovered quickly. "Why don't we step into my office and talk, Detective Spock?" she asked, smiling widely and gesturing toward the glass door to her office. Spock inclined his head toward her to signify acceptance, and they all walked into her office. Uhura sat behind her large mahogany desk and Spock sat on a comfortable chair positioned directly across from her. Gaila stood off to the side, gaze flitting between them uneasily. "May I ask what this is about?" Uhura inquired.

Spock considered employing one of his new partner's strategies in questioning Councilwoman Uhura, but he wasn't particularly comfortable with or skilled at performing such subterfuge. No, what he was best at was being as blunt as possible. "Ms. Uhura, last night one of your campaign cars was removed from Walden Lake." Uhura blinked, her eyebrows creeping together. "The dead body of a local teenage boy was found in the trunk."

Spock heard Gaila's sharp intake of breath as shock covered Uhura's face and her hand flew to her mouth. "Oh my God," the Councilwoman whispered. "What…what happened to him?"

"He was murdered," Spock responded evenly, not even blinking.

It took approximately five seconds for Gaila's thoughts to move from the life that had been prematurely taken to the possible impact on her candidate's chances of being elected. "I remember reading a report about a stolen car. There's no reason to assume that his murder had anything to do with Nyota's campaign—"

"Gaila," Uhura interrupted, staring at her adviser and friend in disbelief. The redhead broke off and jutted her chin out defensively. Uhura turned back to face Spock. "What can we do to help?" she asked, sounding sincere.

"Are you familiar with the name Pavel Chekov?" Spock questioned.

Uhura's eyes drifted momentarily to the left before she answered. "No, I don't believe so. Is that the boy who was murdered?" Spock nodded. "Do you have a picture? I'm better with faces than with names."

Wordlessly, Spock removed a picture of the teenager from his pocket. It was the boy's yearbook photograph.

Uhura tentatively reached out and took the picture into her well-manicured hands. Her eyes softened as she stared at it. "He's so young…" she whispered. "I'm sorry, but I don't recognize him. Maybe you could talk to O'Neil, the young man downstairs in the sweater vest. He's the volunteer coordinator. If that young man ever worked for our campaign, he'd know."

"Very well," Spock replied, taking the picture back and putting it in his pocket. He placed another scrap of paper on the desk. "This is the license plate of the car recovered from Walden Lake. I expect your campaign office to give us all records of its use."

"Of course," Uhura said earnestly. "Anything we can do to help."

Spock nodded and stood. "I have one final request." Uhura and Gaila looked at him expectantly. "Nothing I have told you, as they say, leaves this room."

Gaila frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Until the Police Department decides to release the news of Mr. Chekov's death, you will not tell anyone anything that I've told you." Spock replied simply.

Gaila scoffed and took a long step toward Spock. He turned slightly to face her, not moving backward even though she was now uncomfortably close to him. "You can't possibly expect us to sit on this information! What if it gets out to the press?"

Spock raised an eyebrow at her. "I assure you, the police are dedicated to keeping this information secret for as long as possible. Anything less would make it more difficult to ascertain this young man's murderer. I give you my word that I will inform you before we release anything concerning the boy's death to the public."

Gaila opened her mouth to protest further, but Uhura swiftly cut her off. "Of course, we'll do anything to help."

"Thank you, Ms. Uhura," Spock said calmly, turning to leave the Councilwoman's office.

"Feel free to contact our office with any questions." Spock looked over his shoulder to see Uhura smiling gently at him. "And call me Nyota."

Spock, feeling an inexplicable warmness rising in his stomach, nodded at her and strode out of the office.

* * *

><p>Jim was in a significantly better mood when he returned to the station than when he'd left. He hated when he and Bones, who was his only real friend, fought, and was so glad that they were at least talking again. After what had happened with Joanna during his last case, Jim had figured that Bones was more likely to take one of shiny surgeon knives and harvest his gallbladder than ask him to have a drink. But just because Bones had forgiven him for putting his daughter in danger didn't mean Jim had forgiven himself.<p>

Swaggering into the morgue, Jim saw Spock already standing rigidly next to the stone slab on which Pavel's body was laying. The impassive man looked up as Jim entered.

"Did your investigation at the high school reveal anything pertinent?" he inquired.

Jim shook his head. "Nah, nothing yet, but I talked to this one kid and he knows something he's not saying. I'm going back to the school tomorrow; I'll get him to tell me what he knows." He leaned against the metal wall, trying not to shiver. "How did you do?"

"I have gotten Nyota and her senior adviser Ms. Orion to agree to keep Pavel Chekov's death confidential. In addition, I anticipate that they will send the records of the campaign car in question shortly."

Jim's eyebrows flew up. "Nyota?" he repeated. "You're calling her by her first name?"

"It is inconsequential," Spock replied, even more stiffly than normal. Before Jim could say anything more, M'Benga walked in. "Doctor," Spock said loudly. "Do you have the results of the toxicology report?"

"Yep." The coroner handed a manila file to Jim, who flipped it open and riffled through the papers within it, not really looking at them because he knew M'Benga would say the results aloud. "It was positive for alcohol, but no recreational or prescription drugs."

"So he was an underage drinker." Jim mused, not really surprised. It would be more shocking if there was a high school senior out there who didn't drink. "Kid's principal made him out to be a saint."

"I fail to see how a child with no obvious religious affiliations could be nominated for sainthood, Mr. Kirk," Spock said, looking honestly confused. Jim resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Did you finish the autopsy and medical examination?" Kirk asked M'Benga loudly.

The coroner nodded. "I confirmed cause of death as drowning." M'Benga shook his head, sighing. "Poor kid. Every one of his fingernails was ripped out from clawing at the inside of that trunk. He had bruises and lacerations all over his torso and arms, although I can't tell from what. Both his feet were badly cut up, practically mangled."

Despite the fact that he'd been on the job dealing with murders for years, hearing M'Benga describe the kid's injuries made Jim's stomach turn. He glanced sideways and saw that Spock's face hadn't even twitched from its perpetual expression. It sent a wave of anger through his body—a person with any semblance of a heart shouldn't just be _okay _hearing about a child's violent death. "Time of death?" Jim asked, clenching his jaw.

"Hard to determine exactly, because of all water damage, but I'd say sometime in the last three days."

Jim gritted his teeth. _That's hardly specific._ "So he could have died any time Saturday, Sunday, or Monday?"

M'Benga nodded apologetically. "Sorry I can't be more helpful, but being underwater really takes a toll on a corpse."

"Alright." Jim hesitated before continuing. It wasn't something he really liked to ask, but Pavel's body was half-naked when they found him, so he had to. "Did you find signs of any funny business?"

Spock frowned. "Again, Mr. Kirk, I fail to see how anything that happened to a dead teenager could be considered humorous."

_Here he goes again…_Jim stared imploringly at M'Benga, who smirked sympathetically at him before answering. "Sorry, Jim. Again, there's too much water damage. I can't tell if he had any sex, with a female or a male, consensual or otherwise." He shrugged. "Sorry."

"That's alright," Jim said. "Hey, do you know if Mr. Chekov got home okay?" he added as an afterthought.

M'Benga nodded. "He's fine. A coworker of his came to pick him up."

"Great. See ya later." Jim smiled at the coroner before turning to leave.

"Thank you for your time," Spock added, following Jim out of the morgue.

"I'll keep looking!" M'Benga called after them as the door swung shut. They walked in silence for a few steps, and then Spock spoke up.

"Mr. Kirk?"

"Hmm?" Jim acknowledged, figuring he wanted to discuss the case.

"When Captain Pike requested that I become your partner, I researched your career." _Well, isn't that fucking awesome_, Jim thought, because he had a definite idea where this was going. "The Internal Affairs investigation regarding your last case is confidential, and I was curious as to its contents."

Jim's jaw clenched. He so did _not _want to talk about this, especially with Spock. "Well, I'm sure that a smart guy like you could figure it out," he back shot passive-aggressively at the man.

Spock was unfazed by his tone. "I have been able to ascertain that the investigation was related to your last partner, Mr. Nero."

Jim whipped around to face Spock head on, anger rising in his chest. _Who the hell is this guy to shove his giant nose into my business? _"Look, Bowl Cut," he hissed. "We're not here to gab like high school girls, we're here to solve a murder, so why don't you just keep your questions to yourself?"

_Goddamn, _Jim wanted to tear that eyebrow right off of his fucking _face_.

"Very well, Mr. Kirk," Spock replied calmly. "I will see you tomorrow morning at the school. Good night."

* * *

><p>Next Chapter: Enter Montgomery Scott, quite possibly the only shop teacher to ever nearly blow up a building.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Thanks to those you reviewed! And especially to Wahoogal06, who pointed out the inclusion of Khan. I like to put in little TOS references to amuse myself, and hopefully others._

_Don't forget to review! It makes me update quicker…_

Chapter 5

_Wednesday, November 5__th_

Gaila was pacing back and forth in Nyota's office, worrying a bright red curl between her long fingernails, when the Councilwoman arrived that morning.

"Hey, Gai," Nyota greeted her long time advisor and friend as she sat down at her desk and laid out her newspaper. "I was looking over the latest polling numbers, and I thought—"

"Have you come to your senses yet?" Gaila interrupted, throwing her mane of hair over one shoulder.

Nyota frowned, folding her paper in half and looking up. "Gaila, if this is about that boy—"

"Of course this is about him!" Gaila burst out in exasperation, perching herself on the corner of Nyota's desk. "Look, Nyota, I know this kind of thing hits a little too close to home for you—"

Nyota's face tightened and her fists clenched.

"—but you could seriously be compromising your chance at becoming mayor with this. If word leaks out to the press that a murdered teen was found in one of our campaign cars, then our race will be over, kay? I mean instantly—poof, gone, no more Uhura for Mayor."

Nyota sighed. Gaila had been her closest friend since grade school, and when Nyota decided to make the switch from law to politics she had been a godsend. Gaila's can-do attitude, people skills and pure political aptitude had been instrumental in winning the election for her seat on the City Council. Their combined 'girl-power' energy had won over thousands of voters, including a record number of women, and when Nyota had set her sights on becoming Mayor, she knew that she couldn't do it without the vivacious redhead.

But Gaila had a tendency to become so fixated on achieving a goal that she would be willing to do anything to get there. Like interfering with a police investigation into the murder of a sixteen-year-old. "What do you suggest we do?"

"I suggest," began Gaila, leaning forward toward Nyota, "that we head this off! Release a statement to the press about how the boy was found in a stolen car." She must have seen the uncertain look on Nyota's face, because she continued quickly. "If we don't, Ny, then Khan's guys will make it look like we were hiding the information because one of us killed the kid!"

"And if we go public," Nyota countered immediately, leaning in an equal amount, "then he paints us as monsters who interfered with a boy's murder investigation to cover our asses." She shook her head. "No, we're not going to go there. I trust Detective Spock to keep his word and tell us before he goes public with news of the murder."

Gaila let out a light, feminine snort, tossing back her hair. Nyota could see she was transitioning from politician mode to best friend mode. "You trust him, or you think he's hot?" she snarked.

"Oh, please," Nyota scoffed, even as her cheeks reddened uncomfortably. _Dammit. _After more than twenty years of friendship, the redhead could see right through her.

"Come _on_, Ny," Gaila leapt off the desk, stalking in a semi-circle around Nyota's chair, her bright red high heels flashing. "I saw the way you looked at him. And that whole 'call me Nyota' routine? You are _so_ into him. Which, by the way—bowl cut? Really? What part of that is sexy to you?"

Nyota crossed her arms over her chest defensively. "You're one to judge. You slept with O'Neil and he's, like, nineteen and wears sweater vests!"

Gaila let out a dramatic sigh and inspected her long, crimson-painted nails. "Fair enough," she finally said. "And we won't say anything yet." Nyota's shoulders relaxed—now she wouldn't have to fight Gaila on this anyone, which was good, because she was buried up to her neck in other problems. Like the fact that she was trailing Khan in the polls by ten points, and had fallen hard for a composed, mysterious detective who probably viewed her as nothing more than a suspect. "But we should call DeSalle," Gaila added, eyeing her.

Nyota groaned. She _hated _DeSalle. A career political advisor, the man always looked down on her because, despite her years of experience, he viewed her as an incompetent child.

"I know, Ny," Gaila said sympathetically. "But he's the best, and we need the best right now."

"I guess you're right," Nyota sighed unhappily. "Alright, you can call him."

"Excellent," Gaila chirped cheerfully.

After several minutes spent picking at the newspaper, the headline of which blared how behind she was in the mayoral race, Nyota spoke up. "Did you get the information to send to the detective?"

"The hunky, hunky detective?" Gaila teased lightly. Nyota fixed her with a mock glare. "God, you're no fun," the redhead said, rolling her eyes. "The campaign car that the police found was reported stolen last Tuesday." Nyota breathed a sigh of relief. "I sent the records of use via courier to the police station."

"Great. Thanks for handling that, Gai." The redhead smiled at the gratitude. "And did you see if the kid ever worked for us?" Nyota asked.

"I did indeed." Gaila pulled a small notebook from her purse. "He never worked here at campaign headquarters, but I made O'Neil stay here all night digging—don't worry, I only told him that the kid was Khan's nephew and might be trying to spy on our operations—and he found out that Pavel was a regular visitor at one of the Enterprise Rising Stars centers."

Nyota blanched. The Rising Stars centers were the crowning achievement of her time on the City Council—they were fruition of her education and anti-crime initiatives. The centers were places that so-called high-risk city kids ('high-risk' being a nice name for kids without rich parents) could go after school or on weekends to play sports, read or just hang out. Nyota had personally written, proposed and sponsored the legislation that allowed for their creation, and it would be a crushing blow to her campaign if it was revealed that the dead boy found in one of her cars frequented one of the centers.

"Like I said," Gaila said, suddenly deadly serious again. "We need to call DeSalle."

* * *

><p>"Good morning, Mr. Kirk."<p>

Jim barely held back a grimace as he saw Spock waiting for him in front of the door to the school. "Hey, Spock," he responded unenthusiastically, rubbing at his bloodshot eyes. He'd spent all of last night repeatedly calling Bones at the hospital so that they could have a few minutes to talk between his surgeries. Hell, Jim had even called Jocelyn, Bones' bitch of an ex-wife, intending to try to convince her to let his best friend see his daughter, before he remembered that she quite possibly hated Jim more than she hated the father of her child and hung up before he could hear her shrill, harpy-like voice.

"Shall we?" Spock gestured toward the dark blue metal doors. Jim wondered exactly how the man managed to function so well when he must have had as little sleep as Jim in the past few days.

"Yeah, sure," Jim replied tiredly, following his partner through the doors and into the filthy, freezing tile hallway. _Ah, _Jim couldn't help but think, _the hell that is a big city high school. _Skinny, mean-looking kids were leaning against dented navy lockers with chipped paint, quickly hiding whatever they were smoking as Jim and Spock walked by.

A shrill bell sounded, echoing painfully through the school halls, and the kids scurried away to their classes. Jim scanned the faces of the mob, vaguely looking for Hikaru or the Irish kid, Kevin something. Oddly enough, even though he was standing right in the middle of the main hallway, he didn't see them pass. _Hmm. _

"Okay, Spock," Jim said, stopping and spinning on his heel to face his partner. "Here's the plan. You go to the main office and get Pavel's schedule. And the schedules of, let's see, Hikaru Sulu, Martha Landon, and every student named Kevin. I'm gonna go talk to Archer again." After seeing for Spock's slight nod, Jim headed to the principal's office. He hoped that getting all the schedules would keep Spock busy—Jim didn't want him to question any witnesses. He preferred employing a subtle, manipulative strategy when trying to weasel information out of people, and Spock's tendency to just out and _ask_, guilelessly, whatever he wanted to know annoyed the hell out of the blonde.

Reaching the office, Jim knocked on the wooden door and thought about the fact he hadn't had to visit a principal's office in over a decade (he'd been very familiar with the act for many of his childhood years).

"Come in."

Jim opened the door and stepped into Archer's office. It was painfully neat (although compared with his own paperwork-infested, empty takeout container-strewn office anything looked neat), and the walls were plastered with the kind of motivational posters that turned teenagers to smoking and skipping class. Archer glanced up from the book he was reading, plucking his glasses from his face.

"Hello, Detective Kirk. How can I help you?"

Jim took a deep breath and dropped into the highly uncomfortable looking chair in front of the principal's desk. "I just have a few more questions about Pavel."

Archer sighed, rubbing his forehead. "So you haven't found him yet?" he asked dejectedly.

Jim pulled on a half-hearted smile. "Not yet, but we have some leads." He cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing. "I was wondering if you could tell me what his favorite class w—is." He cursed himself for almost slipping up and referring to Pavel in the past tense.

Archer didn't even have to think about the question at all before he answered. "Shop."

"Shop?" Jim figured that a nerdy kid like Pavel's favorite class would be Calculus or something.

"Well, that's just what the kids call it," Archer clarified. "The actual name of the class is Progressive Mechanical Engineering." Jim's eyebrows flew up. "It's a special class for the advanced seniors who've already gotten all their necessary credits. I'm pretty sure it's the only class Pavel actually finds challenging."

"Alright," Jim said. "What's the teacher's name?"

"Montgomery Scott," Archer replied, an expression of distaste morphing his features.

"I get the feeling you don't like him very much," Jim astutely observed.

Archer glanced sideways in both directions, as if he was afraid that they were being overhead, and leaned forward slightly before answering. "He killed my dog," the principal whispered darkly.

Jim blinked in shock. "He…_killed _your dog." Archer nodded, and Jim frowned. In his experience, killing small animals usually was a sign of a pretty sick individual. "And you didn't fire him?"

"I had him transferred to a school for juvenile delinquents up north," Archer explained, lips curling upward with satisfaction at the memory. Then his face fell. "But the kids he taught started refusing to come to school unless I brought him back. And the smart kids who qualify for his class are the only reason this school's average tests scores are so high, so I had to reinstate him."

"Well, I'm gonna go talk to him," Jim decided, rising to his feet. "What room's he in?"

"None of them." Archer jerked his thumb toward the window behind him. "He's out in that building." Jim followed his indication and saw a very large, very worn down one-story stone structure plopped right in between the school and the baseball field. "He's got a class right now, but I'm sure he'll still talk to you." Archer looked rather annoyed at this. "One time, he left a class of kids alone with heavy machinery for an _hour_ while he went to get a sandwich." He shook his head in exasperation. "I can't believe the PTA approved him to chaperone the Halloween dance."

A red flag accompanied with a pleasant _ding! _went up in Jim's brain. _So, this guy chaperoned the dance where Pavel was last seen. _ "Well, I'm gonna go talk to him."

"I swear to God, if he had anything to do with Pavel's disappearance," Archer said quietly, fuming, as Jim left his office.

The hallways were deserted except for the occasional candy wrapper and dead (Jim hoped) cockroaches as he wandered down them. He vaguely wondered if Spock was still busy getting class schedules. After a moment's consideration, Jim figured that he had managed to obtain them by now, and switched his thoughts to figuring out how to avoid the dark-haired man instead.

Catching sight of an exit, Jim slipped out onto the grounds. The air was warm, at least compared to the freezing inside of the school, and the sky was clear blue and cloudless. He strode across the muddy grass, following the footprint indentions that the students had left in the ground, up to the shop building. As he drew close, Jim began to hear loud bangs and shouts.

Eyes widening in shock, Jim rushed forward and threw open the door. Inside, six teenagers in various states of panic were running around a modified engine that was making a terrifying grinding noise and belching smoke at an alarming rate. As a blue-white spark flew from it and let out a deafening _pop!_, Jim decided that this was the most dangerous class he had ever seen, and _damn _he wished they'd had it at his high school. He might have shown up to class once and a while.

"Hold on, lads! Ah'm comin'!"

A heavily accented Scottish voice came from the next room. A forty or so year old man with short brown hair and intense brown eyes barreled in and knocked down a shelf, sending waves of screws and nails cascading to the floor. Scott had a wrench in one hand and a can of oil in another, and after bodily shoving the frantic kids away he plunged his tools into the engine, arms pumping wildly as he worked.

A minute later, the grinding and billows of smoke ceased. Scott pulled away from the engine, panting and wiping sweat from his forehead with an arm. "Will one of ye open a window?" he asked his students, half of which were cowering on ground. The other three, who had been literally applauding their teacher's performance, scrambled to obey him.

As his students dragged themselves from their panic and tried to clear the room of smoke, Scott lovingly stowed his tools away and finally caught sight of Jim.

"Ken I help ye?" Scott asked casually, as if Jim hadn't just witnessed him nearly blowing up a school building full of kids with one of his projects. A student handed him a rag, and he wiped the grease from his hands.

"Yeah," Jim replied, flashing his badge and trying to force down a grin. He knew that Scott was a suspect in Pavel's murder, and had evidently killed a small mammal, but for some reason Jim found it very hard _not_ to like the guy. "I'm Detective Jim Kirk. You're Montgomery Scott, right?"

"Aye, lad," Scott replied cheerfully. "Ye ken call me Scotty. All th' kids do. Hold on." He turned to address the six students who had gathered nervously around the now quiet engine. "Pick up that stuff," he gestured toward the shelf he had toppled. "An' git back to yer practicin'. We're fixin' the heatin' on Friday, an' Ah want everyone ready!" As his students hurriedly complied, Scotty turned back to face Jim.

The blonde let his lips quirk upward. "You and your students are fixing the school's heating system?"

Scotty grinned unabashedly. "Well, Ah figure we should, 'cause we broke it. Ye see, las' week we were checkin' the system for unnecessary parts tah borrow."

"I guess whatever you borrowed wasn't so unnecessary, huh?" Jim joked

"Th' lads jus' got a little overexcited," he replied with a dismissive shrug.

Jim was about to laugh when he remembered that he was in the middle of an investigation. Clearing his throat and straightening up, Jim cast a critical eye around the classroom, looking for something to ask Scotty back so as to ease into his interrogation. "So," he began casually. "Is this your whole class? It seems pretty small."

"Aye, my class is restricted, so Ah don' git that many kids." Scotty glanced back to where his students were working. His brow furrowed. "Bu' now that ye mention it, Ah am t'ree short." His face suddenly softened. "Hikaru and Kevin. They're good friends of Pavel; they're probably jus' missin' him." Jim noticed that the upset, worried look on the teacher's face seemed genuine. The Scot sighed, tucking his hands into the pockets. "I won' tell the office they're ditchin'." Scotty looked down at the floor for a few seconds before continuing. "You're here lookin' for Pavel, right? Is there somethin' ye wanted to ask me about him?"

"Yeah." Jim glanced at the kids in the corner, who were watching them curiously. "Can we go somewhere private to talk?"

"Aye, sure. Let's go intah me office, then." Jim followed Scotty through the door the man had burst out of earlier. He blinked in shock—the inside of Scotty's office looked even more like a mechanical engineering classroom than the room they had just left. Random machine parts were piled haphazardly on metal shelves ringing the walls, and blueprints for outrageous contraptions were pinned to every surface. Instead of a desk, the middle of the office was dominated by a large wooden table covered in gouge and burn marks. Looking around, Jim wondered why Scotty wasn't working at a university or private company instead of a high school.

"So, Principal Archer told me that you chaperoned the Halloween dance," Jim said easily, sitting down on an angular chair that he figured Scotty must have welded together out of scrap metal.

"Aye," Scotty replied, sitting down as well. "I didnae have anythin' better to do, and they were desperate for volunteers. Besides, it was fun tah see all the kids in costume."

"It was a costume party?" Jim asked idly, taking out a notebook and pretending to write in it. Really, he was just doodling. He found that thinking their every word was being recorded made the guilty suspects just the right amount of uncomfortable.

"Aye," Scotty said cheerfully, completely unfazed. _The mark of either an innocent man or a psychopath. You know, the kind that kills dogs. _"I went as a zombie."

"What did Pavel go as?" Jim questioned innocently, sneaking a glance up at the teacher's face. The expected amount of worry and sadness at a missing pupil, but no guilt. At least none that Jim could see.

"A sailor or pirate or somethin' like that." Scotty said after a moment's consideration. He smiled. "Pavel's a good kid. He's not great with th' physical part o' th' work, but his calculations are perfect." The Scot's smile suddenly slipped, and he sighed. "Ah think th' reason that engine almost blew was because Pav wasnae around tah do th' energy output calculations."

"Do you know when he left the dance?" Jim asked, scrawling 'sailor/pirate costume' in between his drawings of a feral cat and a talking hamburger.

"Sorry, Ah don'. There were so many kids, an' someone had brought in a flask I had to confiscate …Ah only saw the laddie once or twice."

Jim paused and then leaned forward. "You were the kid's favorite teacher, right?" Scotty looked surprised momentarily, but he nodded. "Then can you tell me if he was acting strangely lately? Was anything bothering him, that you noticed?"

"No," was Scotty's first answer. "Well…" His interest peaked, Jim waited for the teacher to continue. "He's seemed…a wee bit preoccupied lately. His calculations were takin' longer, an' his head didnae seem tah be in the right place, ye know?"

Jim nodded slowly. "Is there anything else?"

Scotty shook his head. "Sorry, Detective. Pavel isnae a very open kid. Ah'd talk to Hikaru Sulu if ye want tah know more."

"I would, if I could find him," Jim said dryly, rising to his feet. Scotty shrugged sheepishly as Jim took a step backward…and tripped. "What the hell…" he looked down to see that he'd kicked back the corner of a threadbare carpet, revealing something underneath. "Is that a trap door?" Jim dropped down to lean back on his heels and pulled back the carpet. It was an honest to God, old-fashioned trap door.

"Aye, that's right," Scotty said, instantly becoming nervous, his words stumbling out one over the other. "It goes tah th' basement o' this place. Ah ju' keep extra supplies down there." He uneasily rubbed his neck, and sweat beaded on his brow. _So much for the calm, innocent act, _Jim thought smugly. He'd brushed a nerve. Now it was time to beat the shit out of it. Eyes fixed on Scotty's face, Jim opened the trap door, removed his mini flashlight from his pocket and did a hasty visual search of the basement.

There were spare parts, just like Scotty said. But, Jim noticed, there was also a crumpled sleeping bag pressed against wall, along with a toothbrush and water bottle. _Is Scotty living here? _Jim wondered. Without another word, Jim carefully closed the trap door and dragged the carpet back over it.

"So," Jim said. "Archer told me you killed his dog."

Scotty wiped the sweat away, obviously relieved that Jim hadn't asked about the contents of his storage room. "Well, uh, Ah do feel quite bad about tha'. Ye see, Archer lets—well, er, _let_—his wee beagle run free over the grounds, an' one day the curious little thing wandered intah my classroom when one o' my projects was runnin'. Long story short, the poor dog died of exposure to toxic gases."

"Oh," Jim blinked. _Well, at least he's not psychopath who tortures small animals to death. _"Well, alright then. I'll see you later, Scotty."

"Aye." Scotty walked back over to his students as Jim headed out onto the grounds.

_Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Jim pulled out his cell phone as it went off, hoping to see Bones' name on the caller ID. Instead, it was Spock's. He groaned.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Special thanks to Ann, who reviewed the last chapter and caught my ST09 AND TOS references. Well done! There are two more in this chapter, and a third for seriously hardcore Trekkies (Trekkers?). _

Chapter 6

_Wednesday, November 5__th_

Spock sat motionless on a wooden chair in a corner of the school library, the schedules Mr. Kirk had requested stowed away in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Spock was completely aware of the fact that Kirk had only asked him to get these to keep him busy while the blonde interrogated students and teachers. He, however, was unoffended—Spock, after reading many of Kirk's case reports and listening to tapes of his past interrogations, had come to respect the blonde's style of subtle manipulation in questioning suspects. Although it often took longer, it was statistically far more effective than Spock's own strategy.

So, the dark-haired man was content to let Kirk handle the direct questioning, as it was the logical course of action for finding Pavel Chekov's killer.

Spock's look into Kirk's past had also uncovered a rather disturbing matter. He and his partner, Nero, had been investigating a string of murders throughout Enterprise and neighboring cities. Unfortunately, the exact details of the situation were confidential, and Kirk seemed to be unwilling to share them. All Spock knew, besides what he was trying his hardest to forget, was that it had involved the young daughter of a local doctor, the crippling injury of Captain Pike, and that Nero was now in maximum security prison. Spock was quite curious, but he recognized that he wouldn't learn anything until Kirk was ready to tell him.

So right now, with very little to occupy his time, he was attempting to employ a method that Kirk had mentioned using in an interview with a local newspaper. He was trying to, as Kirk had said, "get inside the head" of the victim. Considering the fact that the young man's schedule revealed he spent half his time in independent study in the library, Spock had come here.

He'd been sitting in the exact same position for nearly five minutes, staring intensely at a bookcase and becoming more and more unsure of exactly what this was accomplishing.

"Oh my God!"

Spock looked up at the hushed whisper to see a young female student with big, blue eyes and a halo of short blonde hair that appeared to glow softly in the library's dim lighting. She bore a significant resemblance to Pike's former deputy, except for the lightness of her hair and the fact that she was gaping at him in delight.

"May I help you?" Spock said calmly, even though he found the way she was looking at him to be highly disturbing.

"You're a cop, right?" the young woman asked excitedly, hurrying over and sitting down at the same table Spock was. She placed the video camera she had been carrying on the false-wood surface, positioning it carefully so that the lens was pointed at Spock's face.

"Indeed," Spock replied, reaching out to turn the camera off. "I am Detective Spock. May I inquire as to your name?"

"Christine Chapel." The blonde grinned at him, batting her eyelashes in a manner that Spock supposed was intended to be flirtatious, but rather made her look like she suffered from a neurological disorder resulting in spasms in the eyelid muscles. _Nyota would never behave in such a manner,_ Spock thought, and then instantly shamed himself for it.

"Pleased to meet you," Spock forced out.

"You're here looking for Pavel, aren't you?" Christine continued, twisting a finger in her hair. Spock straightened up, his attention caught. "I didn't know him that well," she continued, and Spock let his shoulders slump infinitesimally. This girl wouldn't have any pertinent information. "I mean, he was a sweet kid, and really smart, but he never really partied or hung out, you know?" Spock did not know, but he said nothing. Christine suddenly frowned. "I mean, he's not the runaway type, unless he was going back to Russia. But he'd tell his dad about that, right? I hope he's okay."

They were both silent for a few seconds. Christine fiddled with the camera as she gazed longingly at Spock. "May I ask why you have that recording device?" Spock finally inquired.

"Oh, this?" Christine held it up to eyelevel enthusiastically. "I go around the school filming lessons and special events and stuff. It's for the video year book."

Spock blinked, an idea forming in his head. "Ms. Chapel," he said. "Did you film the festivities at the Halloween dance?"

"Yeah, of course," Christine replied, confused. "Why?"

Spock stood and took out his cell phone to call Kirk. "I will require the footage from that night."

Hikaru stood leaning on the back of the baseball field dugout, uneasily turning his cell phone over and over in his hand as he waited for Kevin to show up. _I swear to God, _he thought savagely, _if that little fucker's high _again…

At last, Hikaru caught sight of Kevin as he hurried past Scotty's classroom/garage and over the baseball field, kicking up clouds of brown dust. "It's about time! What took you so long?" Hikaru hissed quietly as the Irishman reached him.

Kevin rolled his eyes, looking pissed off, but at least he seemed to be entirely sober. "Chill, dude." He pushed his shoulder against the side of the dugout. "I ran into Keenser." Keenser was Scotty's friend, a short, dark, frankly creepy little man who hung around Scotty like he didn't have anywhere else to go. "What did you want to show me?"

Glancing back and forth to make sure they were completely alone, Hikaru shuffled closer to Kevin. He opened his cell phone, scrolled through his inbox until he found the message he was looking for, and showed it to Kevin, who smiled when he saw it.

"I told you not to worry," the Irish teen said confidently.

"This isn't _proof_ of anything," Hikaru shot back, voice tense and worried. "We should tell the cops—"

"Hikaru, seriously," Kevin interrupted. "Pav's _sixteen_, you know what will happen if they find him and he's…_you know_. They'll tell his dad."

"Yeah, but—"

Hikaru broke off as he saw the cop from yesterday, Jim, leaving Scotty's classroom and heading for the school.

"Do you think he'll want to talk to us?" Kevin asked, trying to cover his anxiety at the idea as he shifted from foot to foot.

"He'll definitely come looking for me," Hikaru replied miserably. "I don't know how, but he knows I'm hiding something."

Kevin frowned. "Yeah, and you'll keep hiding it. For Pav's sake. And when he comes back, he'll thank you. You know it."

Hikaru sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah, I guess," he mumbled, entirely unconvinced and unable to keep the worry for his friend in check.

Kevin must have sensed this, because he rolled his eyes and shoved his shoulder. "Relax, dude. Pav'll be back soon, and we can taunt him mercilessly for getting his own personal manhunt launched." He grinned.

Hikaru sighed, and then nodded. Kevin was right. If Pavel was okay and they told the cops what they knew, and then the cops told his dad, Pavel would never forgive them. "Alright, fine. We'll wait two days, and if Pavel isn't back by then we tell the cops."

"Yeah, yeah, fine," Kevin said, waving his hand dismissively. "Wanna ditch? My dad's still away on his business trip and I have the keys to the liquor cabinet."

_Fuck, _getting drunk sounded so good right now. "Let's go." Hikaru said, and the two of them headed for his Kevin's car.

Jim, following Spock's instructions, wandered around the school library until he found the door to the back room. The blinds were shut tight over the window. Jim reached out, turned the cold metal doorknob and opened the door.

Inside the small, file-lined room there was a small television on a cart and a circular table with four chairs. Spock sat one of them, staring past a hot, blonde teenage girl who was leaning over the table and gabbing incessantly at him, batting her eyelashes. Jim recognized her as one of the soccer players from yesterday, and also recognized the fact that her large, perky, let's say _assets_, were inches from Spock's long nose.

Jim resisted the urge to burst out, "What the _hell_?" and instead said, "Who's your friend, Spock?"

Spock blinked, switching his attention to Jim's face. "I assume you mean Ms. Chapel," he said, gesturing toward the girl, who smiled widely down at the dark-haired man before turning to Jim.

"Christine," she corrected, twirling a lock of short blonde hair between two of her fingers. "I'm the editor of the video yearbook."

"Right. Nice to meet you, Christine." Jim gave her a small, white-toothed smile, but her attention was concentrated solely on Spock, and then sat down next to his partner. The man handed Jim the DVD. He lowered his voice so only the other man could hear him. "Why do we care about the video yearbook?"

Spock's eyebrow arched. "Ms. Chapel has a DVD of footage taken during on the night of the Halloween dance. Considering this was the last place Pavel was seen by his peers, I thought it might be useful for us to view them."

He would never admit it, but Jim was impressed with Spock. This could potentially be a great lead. "Alright, let's do it," he responded. He grabbed the remote from the TV cart and sat back, ready to watch. Christine quickly popped the DVD into the DVD player and then, winking at Spock, left the room.

Colorful images immediately appeared on the screen, along with the pounding noise of bad music and the screams and laughter of partying teenagers. The camera traveled through the mass of costumed kids, who all waved or made a stupid face at it when it passed. "Pavel's wearing a sailor or pirate costume," Jim said, scanning the crowd for the young Russian. He leaned forward, brow furrowed, and watched the screen intently.

Several minutes passed by with them seeing nothing important. And then—

"There! In the corner!" Jim pointed to the edge of the screen where he could just make out a figure dressed in a cheap pirate costume, complete with frilly shirt and plastic sword at his hip. Thankfully, the camera soon swung in his direction and moved closer.

It was odd to Jim, seeing Pavel's face moving and full of life for the first time. The boy's curly hair was bouncy, and his wide blue eyes were bright and shining. He was standing next to Hikaru, who was dressed in a samurai outfit and chatting with a brunette girl dressed as cat.

"Hey guys!" exclaimed Christine's disembodied voice. "Do you want to say something for the video yearbook?"

Hikaru glanced briefly at the camera before rolling his eyes and returning his gaze to the girl. Pavel just blinked.

"What would we say for eet?" Pavel asked. His accent was thick like his father's, but instead of being hard and menacing it was more soft and endearing.

"Um…" Christine considered. "I know! You can spill. Did you really do it with Martha?"

Hikaru, seeming amused, returned his attention to their conversation just as Pavel's cheeks burned bright red in a spectacular blush. "We newer had sex," he mumbled, running his fingers awkwardly through his curls.

"Well, come on and tell us what you did do!" Christine urged. "What base did you get to?"

"Base?" Pavel said, sounding honestly confused. "Like in baseball?"

Hikaru stifled a laugh but swept in to rescue his innocent friend. "Christine, you're doing a school-approved video yearbook. You can't ask that."

"Whatever." Christine chirped dismissively. "I'll just make a second, unapproved one. It will be way more awesome."

"What's up?" A third boy, the Irish kid named Kevin, stumbled in and pulled a startled Pavel into a headlock with one arm. With the other, he pulled a flask from his vampire costume and took a long swig.

"Okay," laughed Christine, as Hikaru snatched the flask away and shoved it back into Kevin's pocket, looking back and forth to make sure no teachers had seen. "I'm _definitely _making two different videos."

"Come see me later," Kevin flirted, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "We'll make some more material for it."

"Oh, you _wish_," Christine said, and the view of the room spun around and bounced slightly as she turned and flounced away.

Jim and Spock carefully watched the rest of the video, but they saw nothing else of Pavel, and nothing suspicious. Jim stared in silence at the black TV screen for several minutes after the DVD ended, thinking.

"Shall we report the instance of underage drinking on school grounds?" Spock finally asked.

Jim shook his head. "Nah. It would be great leverage if we ever wanted to get that kid to talk." Seeing the disapproving crinkle between Spock's eyebrows, Jim rolled his eyes. "Come on, you never drank at parties when you were a kid?"

"It is illegal to consume alcohol under the age of twenty-one," Spock replied coolly.

"You didn't answer my question," Jim shot back wryly. Spock merely frowned at him, and Jim realized that was all the answer Spock needed to give. It was illegal, thus he didn't do it.

Jim sighed. It figured that Spock had been the good-boy type.

"Mr. Kirk," Spock suddenly said. "I have had many partners over the years." Jim didn't doubt it. They probably couldn't wait to unload him. "I have found that the length of the partnerships was directly correlated to the trust between myself and the other law officer."

Jim frowned. He had a very bad idea about where this was going. "Your point being, Spock?"

"My point, Mr. Kirk," Spock said calmly, "is that I find it difficult to trust a detective with an Internal Affairs investigation centered on him and his former partner."

_And there it is. _"You want to know what happened with Nero." Jim said through gritted teeth, his voice hard.

"Indeed."

"I_ told _you to drop it, Spock," Jim growled, irritation and frustration churning in his stomach. _Where does Spock get off thinking that he has a right to know everything? My last case is none of his fucking business!_

"Indeed, you did." Spock stared expectantly at him.

Jim's hands curled into angry fists. "Look, you want to know what happened with Nero?" he demanded heatedly. Spock inclined his head in the affirmative. "I screwed up, okay?" Jim hissed savagely, rising to his feet to loom menacingly over Spock. The man seemed infuriatingly unaffected. "My partner was working with a terrorist organization, and I didn't notice until he'd put a bullet into my boss' spine, and I didn't catch him until he shot an innocent bystander"-Spock's eye twitched-"and nearly killed my best friend's daughter to get to me." Jim let out breath that was shaky with anger. "Now, is there anything else you want to know?

Spock silently shook his head.

"Good."

Grabbing the DVD, Jim stormed from the room and slammed the door behind him.

* * *

><p>Still fuming from the encounter from Spock, Jim stalked through the hallways of the school until he came upon the room he was looking for: 131, Martha Landon's 3rd period classroom, according to the schedule Spock had gotten. Taking a deep breath to shove down his anger, he knocked on the classroom door.<p>

It was opened by a wrinkled old teacher still clutching a piece of chalk in her hand. "Yes?" she asked nervously.

Jim pulled his badge from his pocket and flashed it, putting on his best charming smile, which he found was super effective on the elder ladies. "Detective Jim Kirk, Enterprise PD," he introduced himself. "Can I talk to Martha Landon, please, ma'am?"

"Of course," the woman readjusted her thick glasses and turned back to her students. "Martha, the detective would like to talk to you."

"Oh."

Jim heard the feminine, uneasy voice before he saw the girl. Then Martha walked out into the hallway. He immediately recognized the other soccer player from yesterday, her long blonde hair hanging around her shoulders and her bright blue eyes perfectly extenuated by dark eyeliner, and was amazed that such a beautiful girl (again, not actually interested in her, not a pedophile, just observant) would go for a nerdy kid like Pavel.

"Uh…is this about Pavel?" Martha asked, looking over her shoulder and shifting her weight to one foot. Her long, dark eyelashes and half-closed eyelids gave her a perpetually bored look. "Cause I didn't really know him that well…"

"Really? Because Hikaru told me that you went to homecoming with him." Jim replied pointedly. "So it seems like you must have spent at least a few hours with him."

"Yeah, well, I just did that to piss off my boyfriend," Martha shot back, curling and uncurling a strand of hair around her finger.

"That's it?" Jim prodded, raising his eyebrows skeptically. "You just used him to make your boyfriend angry?"

Martha let out a little huff of breath, glancing up and down the deserted hallway before leaning in imperceptively closer to Jim. "Okay, so it wasn't awful being with Pavel. I mean, he's a sweet kid, and it was nice to hang out with a guy who didn't try to grope me and didn't treat me like a piece of meat."

Jim frowned. "Your boyfriend treats you badly?"

"Oh my God, it's not like he _hits_ me or anything," Martha backtracked quickly, rolling her eyes and looking away from Jim. "We're still together and everything, we got back together the day after homecoming." She smiled smugly. "My plan worked perfectly. Greg got _so_ pissed."

"Pissed enough to do something stupid?" Jim asked seriously.

Martha's jaw dropped. "You think Greg has something to do with Pavel going missing?" Jim just shrugged. Somehow, he doubted that a meathead like Martha was describing would have the intelligence to try to hide a body underwater. "God, he'd never _hurt_ anyone. And he certainly wouldn't wait a whole month. Hell, he's probably _forgotten _it by now."

"Uh-huh," Jim said slowly. "What's your boyfriend's last name?"

"Harrison," Martha replied stonily, narrowing her eyes at Jim. "Look, I have to get back to class, okay?"

Jim watched her disappear into her classroom, along with yet another potential lead that didn't pan out. "O-kay," he muttered back.


End file.
